


Haunting the Heights

by TheHeightsThatWuthered (JosieRuby1)



Category: Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
Genre: Haunting, Illness, Suicidal Thoughts, ghost - Freeform, ghost!linton, young death, young illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 19:00:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11697894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JosieRuby1/pseuds/TheHeightsThatWuthered
Summary: At the age of six or seven, Linton told his Mama that he wanted to die.At the age of ten, Linton thought he could survive anything.At the age of twelve, Linton’s world fell apart.





	Haunting the Heights

**Author's Note:**

> I received an ask on Tumblr that said 'Imagine Linton haunting the heights' and this ensued. Check out my Wuthering Heights Tumblr: http://theheightsthatwuthered.tumblr.com

At the age of six or seven, Linton told his Mama that he wanted to die. Not because he didn’t like the world and not because he wanted to leave her but because he was in so much pain all the time that he just wanted it all to stop. His Mama had cried. She hadn’t been able to speak, she just cried and cried and hugged him so tight that it hurt but he didn’t complain. Linton cried himself that day because he had made his Mama cry and he hated that. He apologised and promised that he didn’t mean it. (But he did).

At the age of ten, Linton thought he could survive anything. With his Mama at his side, the pain was almost bearable. (It wasn’t, not really). Mama was always there to tell him stories of her childhood, of Uncle Edgar and Aunt Cathy, of the moors and the Grange. Mama was always there to run a gentle hand through his pale hair and promise him that she would always be there to keep him safe. She told him that being a Linton meant being a loving and caring but mostly it meant being a survivor. And he believed her. (He really did).

At the age of twelve, Linton’s world fell apart. There are no words to describe losing your Mother but for Linton the pain was stronger because she wasn’t just his Mum. She was the only one he knew. She was his constant, she was the one who cared for him, looking after him, she was the one who made the pain very almost bearable. When Mama died, something in Linton broke. The pain that had always been physical turned emotional as well. He cried. He cried so much that his eyes stung and his body shook and everything hurt. He cried and let his pain fester as anger.

Linton was angry at the world. He was angry at God for taking his Mama away. He was angry at Uncle Edgar for not keeping him. He was angry at his father for forcing him to live in the uncomfortable and hellish place that was Wuthering Heights. He was so angry and he took it out on everyone. On Hareton for being stupid, on Cathy for not contacting him enough, on Nelly – well she was only a servant, wasn’t she?

At the age of twelve, Linton wanted to die. He told his Mama again. A whispered prayer to heaven where he knew his Mama would be, a desperate promise that he would be there soon and they would be together again. They would both be free of pain and fear and hurt. They would have their paradise.

But Linton meant survivor and Linton didn’t die at twelve. He held on. He held on another four years and was well past his seventeenth birthday when he finally passed away. He had done many bad things he knew, he had treated Cathy appallingly and he was scared. Sixteen-year-old Linton was terrified that he would not end up in heaven, that he wouldn’t see his Mama again.

Death was not the peace that Linton had expected though. He no longer had a body which meant he no longer had the physical pain that had racked him his entire life but what he had still was a mind. He could still think and feel the emotional pain and that only made him angrier. He was lost. He didn’t know where he had been buried but when his soul had left his body, he wasn’t close to Wuthering Heights or the Grange or anything that he recognised.

Determination drove him to find his way around. His soul moved weightlessly. It didn’t walk so much as float and there was no effort needed. If living had been that easy Linton might have wished to continue doing so. It took time, time in which the anger festered within him. Time in which he realised what a monster his Father was, how much he had been manipulated and moulded. Time in which he realised that his Father must’ve hurt his Mama and he could never forgive that.

It took well over a year, a lost soul trying to find its way back to Wuthering Heights, trying to find a way to get revenge on a man who was supposed to be his hero. Linton found the farmhouse eventually, looking over the moors, small, gothic, full of hatred. But it was too late.

He learnt quickly that Heathcliff was dead and hoped he was rotting in hell. Perhaps that was unfair but Linton didn’t think so. He saw Catherine and Hareton, he saw happiness blooming which he thought was impossible. He felt himself thaw as he saw them, as he saw what he thought was impossible. Hope, life, new beginnings. And he knew there was no place for him there.

His time on earth was finished. Linton didn’t know how to leave but his soul did. When he realised he was finished on this earth, his soul moved to the next plane and Isabella was waiting for him.


End file.
